A letter home from study abroad
7 sept 96
I woke up at about 11 and decided that I needed to shower.
After about 20 minutes of fiddling with the water heater thing, I was
able to get 30 second spurts of tolerably warm water. I was actually
able to wash my hair! Anyway, after I dried off, I checked the clothing
I hung out to dry last night. A bit better, but still soaked. I
decided to give it another day. After that, I started making the rounds
on the phone. I was determined to find something to do. Unfortunately,
I couldn't track down a single person. Having resigned myself to a day
at home, I sat down to type. After about half an hour, Shiloh called
asking if I wanted to go to GUM with her and Leslie. (GUM is a huge
soviet department store turned mall) I figured a shopping trip was
better than no trip at all. I was told that I had to get over there
right away, as they were about to head out. When I arrived 20 minutes
later, Leslie was painting her nails and Shiloh and Liz were sitting
around chatting. Shiloh asked me to take a shot at hooking up her new
phone, but I just couldn't get it to work. An hour and about 3 outfits
apiece later, we finally headed out. (Perhaps I should take this moment
to mention that Shiloh and Leslie were shopping for outfits to wear
clubbing, as they had "nothing" to wear.)
Stepping out of the metro, we were greeted by hordes of people.
It was "Den Goroda" (The Day of the City) and dozens of streets were
blocked off for the biggest street fair I've ever seen. Shiloh and
Leslie were more interested in shopping, so Liz and I agreed to meet
them later. I'm not really sure how to describe the den goroda...It was
neat. We walked around. It looked like it was about to rain. We walked
around faster. It looked like it was about to pour. We walked to GUM.
It started to pour. GUM's glass roof is in need of some serious
work. Liz and I tried to meet the shoppers at the appointed time, but
they were nowhere to be found. We got on the
more-overcrowded-than-usual metro and went our seperate ways home. I
spent the evening inside reading and teaching myself to program in C.
At seven or eight, the rain started up again. At nine or ten, five
seperate fireworks displays started all along the river. After one
particularly loud one, some guy's car alarm went off. I fell asleep
around midnight.
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Yesterday's reply of the day came from dave barker (dabarker@vassar.edu)
Jesse, thanks for clearing that up for me. I am going to name
all of my 40 sea monkeys "Oleg." After all, I wouldn't want
them to feel left out.
-dave.
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(and yes, he really does have sea monkeys)